THE MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY
THE WORKS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK
ESSAYS
THE TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE
WISDOM AND DESTINY
THE LIFE OF THE BEE
THE BURIED TEMPLE
THE DOUBLE GARDEN
THE MEASURE OF THE HOURS
ON EMERSON, AND OTHER ESSAYS
OUR ETERNITY
THE UNKNOWN GUEST
THE WRACK OF THE STORM
MOUNTAIN PATHS
PLAYS
SISTER BEATRICE, AND ARDIANE AND BARBE BLEUE
JOYZELLE, AND MONNA VANNA
THE BLUE BIRD, A FAIRY PLAY
MARY MAGDALENE
PÉLLÉAS AND MÉLISANDE, AND OTHER PLAYS
PRINCESS MALEINE
THE INTRUDER, AND OTHER PLAYS
AGLAVAINE AND SELYSETTE
THE MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY
THE BETROTHAL; A SEQUEL TO THE BLUE BIRD
POEMS
HOLIDAY EDITIONS
OUR FRIEND THE DOG
THE SWARM
DEATH
THOUGHTS FROM MAETERLINCK
THE BLUE BIRD
THE LIFE OF THE BEE
NEWS OF SPRING AND OTHER NATURE STUDIES
THE LIGHT BEYOND
[Illustration]
_The Miracle of
Saint Anthony_
_By
Maurice Maeterlinck_
_Translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos_
_With Introduction by
Arthur Bartlett Maurice_
_New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
Publishers_
COPYRIGHT, 1918
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
_All Rights Reserved_
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
This play was written some ten or twelve years ago, but has never been
published or performed in the original. A translation in two acts was
printed in Germany a few years before the war; but the present is the
only authorized version, in its final, one-act form, that has hitherto
appeared in any language.
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.
CHELSEA, _27 February, 1918_.
CHARACTERS
SAINT ANTHONY
GUSTAVE
ACHILLE
THE DOCTOR
THE RECTOR
JOSEPH
THE COMMISSARY OF POLICE
A POLICE-SERGEANT
A POLICEMAN
MADEMOISELLE HORTENSE
VIRGINIE
LÉONTINE, an old lady
VALENTINE, a young girl
OTHER RELATIONS AND GUESTS
_The action takes place in the present century, in a small Flemish
provincial town._
INTRODUCTION
“The Miracle of St. Anthony”—whatever the exact date of its writing, and
that is a point which the author himself has probably forgotten,—belongs
in flavour and spirit, to that early period of the career of the Belgian
seer and mystic to which Mr. James Huneker referred when he wrote “There
is no denying the fact that at one time Maeterlinck meant for most people
a crazy crow, masquerading in tail feathers plucked from the Swan of
Avon.” For it was to Shakespeare that he was first compared, though the
title “the Belgian Shakespeare” was applied ironically by some, just
as later manifestations of his genius won for him the appellation of
“the Belgian Emerson.” But “The Miracle of St. Anthony” differs from the
other plays of what may be called “the early Maeterlinck.” Most of them,
to quote Mr. Edward Thomas, have a melancholy, a romance of unreality,
a morbidity, combined with innocence, which piques our indulgence. He
has no irony to put us on the defensive. But irony is the very essence
of “The Miracle of St. Anthony.” Nor does the scene of the little play
belong to that land of illusion, that mystic border country, half
twilight and half mirage, in which so many of the early plays were laid.
The St. Anthony from whom the satire takes its title may be the blessed
St. Anthony of Padua, but the atmosphere is unmistakably the gray, sombre
Flemish atmosphere that Maeterlinck knew in his early youth, while the
Marionettes who speak the lines were drawn, not from Fairy-land, but from
some town of the Low-Countries.
Maeterlinck’s nationality was not a mere chance of birth, but a heritage
of many generations. The Flemish family of which he was born in Ghent on
August 29, 1862, had for six centuries been settled in the neighborhood.
His childhood was passed at Oostacker, in a house on the bank of a canal
connecting Ghent with Terneuzen. So near was the water that the ships
seemed to be sliding through the garden itself. The seven years spent
at the Jesuit college of St. Barbe were not happy years, but there were
developed his first literary aspirations, and there he formed certain
friendships that lasted into later life. At the University, where he
studied for the Bar, he met Émile Verhaeren, who was destined to stand
out with King Albert, Cardinal Mercier, and Maeterlinck, as one of the
great figures of the land when Belgium came to experience her agony.
But it was not in Maeterlinck to settle down to a lawyer’s work and a
bourgeois life. “Like Rodenbach,” said M. Edouard Schuré, “he had dreamed
alongside the sleeping waters of Belgium and in the dead cities, and,
though his dream did not become a paralysing reverie, thanks to his
vigorous and healthy body, he was already troubled in such a way that
he was unlikely to accept the conditions of a legal career.” So, when
at twenty four, he made his first trip to Paris, though the visit was
professedly in the interests of his studies, it was with the result that
he plunged definitely and whole heartedly into literature. To Villiers de
l’Isle Adam, and others of the ultra modern school, he was introduced
by an old _copain_ of the Jesuit college, Gregoire Le Roy. Le Roy read
to the group Maeterlinck’s “The Massacre of the Innocents,” a perfectly
Flemish piece of objective realism. It was applauded, and soon after
appeared in “La Pléïde,” a short-lived review which also printed some of
the poems collected in “Serres Chaudes.”
That first stay in Paris was one of about six months. Returning to Ghent,
he conformed to the wishes of his family to the extent of dabbling a
little at the Bar. But his heart was with “La Jeune Belgique,” to which
he had been introduced by Rodenbach, author of “Bruges la Morte,” and for
which he was writing his poems. Then in 1889, when he was twenty-seven
years of age, “Serres Chaudes” was published, and with it went the last
tie binding him to the law.
Continuing to live in his native Oostacker, his days were divided between
writing, tending his bees, and outdoor pastimes. As a member of the
Civic Guard of Ghent he was as poor an amateur soldier as Balzac had
been when enrolled in the National Guard of the France of his time. His
musket was allowed to rust until the night before an inspection. Material
surroundings meant little to him. As with Barrie, the four walls were
enough. He could people the homely room to suit his fancy. In imagination
a table became a mountain range, a chair the nave of a superb cathedral,
a side-board a limitless expanse of surging ocean. Through the window he
could look out over a country suggesting the scene of his early play,
“Les Sept Princesses,” “A dark land of marshes, of pools, and of oak and
pine forests. Between enormous willows a straight and gloomy canal, on
which a great ship of war advances.”
“La Princesse Maleine,” which also appeared in 1889, had been first
privately printed by the author himself, on a hand press. With it
Maeterlinck was launched into the fierce light of fame. Octave Mirbeau
wrote of it in the _Figaro_ of Paris. He said that no one could be
more unknown than the author, but that his book was a masterpiece,
“comparable—shall I dare say it? superior in beauty to the most beautiful
in Shakespeare.” There were less generous critics who suggested that
the play was Shakespeare, because it had been made with scraps of
Shakespeare. A champion of Maeterlinck retorted that in comparison with
Maleine and Hjalmar the characters of Shakespeare were marionettes.
So the storm raged, to the author’s infinite disgust. Finally in
a spirit of modesty and frank acknowledgment he called the play
“Shakespearterie.” There was no pose in that assumption of humility.
From all testimony he has ever been the same. Invited to a dinner his
acceptance has been conditional on absolute simplicity. “After all, I
am a peasant.” It was Gerard Harry who quoted that. Again, at the end
of a first night of one of his plays, he has been described as “modest,
simple, altogether without display in dress or manner.” His gestures
were gentle with reflection, his voice low and rarely heard. He had no
pride of success, but an air at once uneasy and detached, as if tired
of being there. His deep blue eye was cold and mournful, like a mirror
that retains the images of indefinite and impalpable things, as Barbey
d’Aurevilly says the eyes always are of those who look more within than
without. His brow was deep and square and shone pale. He made the
observer think of his own untranslatable words:
Sous l’eau du songe qui s’élève
Mon âme a peur, mon âme a peur.
The same writer says that, by way of contrast, the playwright keeps
bees and teaches a dog to sing; he calls him a sportsman, a man always
getting about, a great drinker of ale—a great boy, a Bohemian. Here also
may be discerned the writer in praise of the sword, the fist, and the
automobile, the friend of the bull-dog and the creator of Tylo. That was
describing the Maeterlinck of the early days. He seems never to have
greatly changed. Was not almost the last picture of him that we had
before the outbreak of the Great War one of poet playing with pugilist at
the manly art of self-defense—the author of “L’Oiseau Bleu” sparring and
wrestling daily with the French champion Carpentier?
New influences began to show in Maeterlinck’s work. His Introduction to
his translation from the Flemish of Ruysbroeck l’Admirable’s “L’Ornement
des Noces Spirituelles” made public his interest in Plato, Plotinous,
Novalis, Jacob Behman, and Coleridge. He published a translation of
Novalis’s “Disciples et Sais.” His feeling for Emerson had become such
that he wrote an Introduction to the Essays of the American that had been
translated into French by I. Will. To that period of his career as a
playwright belong “Les Sept Princesses,” the little plays, “L’Intruse,”
and “Les Aveugles,” “Pélléas et Mélisande,” “Alladine et Palomides,”
“Interieur,” and “La Mort de Tintagiles.” Then, in 1896, he left
Oostacker for good, and settled in Paris. In the same year he published
“Le Tresor des Humbles,” his first volume of Essays, and “Aglavaine et
Selysette.” In a letter to Madame Maeterlinck he said that Aglavaine
brought him “a new atmosphere, a will to happiness, a power to hope.”
Henceforth her light will direct him in a “serene, happy and consoling
course.” Also it was about that time that his life was joined to the life
of Georgette Leblanc.
In “La Vie Belge,” published in 1905, Camille Lemonnier told of
Maeterlinck’s first meeting with the talented woman who was to become
his wife. It took place in a house in the Rue Ducale in Brussels,
the home of Edmond Picard, the great barrister and patron of Belgian
literature. One midnight, after a performance of Strindberg’s “Father”
at the Théâtre du Parc, all were invited there for supper. Maeterlinck,
who still lived in Flanders, had left his bees, and was there, grave,
silent, dreaming, a little out of his element, as he always was in the
city. He was truly himself only in the country, his pipe in his coarse
peasant fingers, filling its black bowl with a fresh pinch of tobacco
from time to time. I had known him at the house of the painter, Claus,
at whose door he sometimes leaped from his wheel, bare-necked, muscular,
broad of shoulders and loins, a regular country boy from the village.
This great, silent, contemplative spirit little knew that he was about
to see appear, under the guise of the charming Georgette Blanc, the very
visage of his destiny. A great silence spread from the far end of the
hall, and suddenly she entered, stately and slow, with the jewel of her
_ferronière_ on her forehead, like a sign of the empire, in the long
swishing of her train. Picard presented them; she gave a little cry; and
he looked at her, embarrassed, with his deep-set peasant eyes, bowing
awkwardly, while, with a deep reverence like a rite, the beautiful
actress, with the ceremonious grace of a little queen of Byzantium,
dedicated to him, without a word, the homage of her artist’s worship.
Maeterlinck looked at her a great deal, but scarcely spoke to her during
supper.
But if his tongue was backward, there were other ways of wooing. “Le
Tresor des Humbles” was dedicated to her. “La Sagesse et la Destinée”
was dedicated to her, “as the result of her collaboration in thought and
example: he had only to listen to her words and follow her life with
his eyes when he wrote the book; for to do so was to follow the words,
the movements, the habits of wisdom itself.” At any rate the woman
understood. Perhaps she helped matters along a little. Perhaps her poise
served to put the shy peasant at his ease. It was a wise union, a union
destined for happiness. “Truly,” said Gerard Harry of it, “henceforward
he looks upon life less desperately and less fearfully.” The glimpses
that Mr. Edward Thomas gave of the _ménage_ show Maeterlinck as he was
in the last year or two of world peace, come to fifty years, in the full
vigor of his mature powers, at the height of his popularity and material
success. Nearly all his books are multiplied and repeated, by new
editions and translations into many languages. Always independent, money
could only add ease and opportunities for gratifying minor tastes. He
spends the winter at Quatre Chemins near Grasse, in the south of France,
the summer at the ancient Benedictine Abbey of St. Wandrille, in the
Department of Seine-Inferieure. But there is hardly a moment when Madame
Maeterlinck is not a part of his life and work. She plays “Macbeth” in
her husband’s translation, while he smokes a pipe of peace as well as in
solitude. The pipe, according to Gerard Harry, contains a denicotinised
herb; for thus, by a piece of heroism discovered by his hero-worshipper,
Maeterlinck circumvents his insatiable craving for tobacco in his working
hours. “By wise disposition,” says Madame Maeterlinck, “he has reduced
his weakness, economised his strength, balanced his faculties, multiplied
his energies, disciplined his instincts.”
“Yet,” says Mr. Thomas, “he continues to write. He is early to rise and
go to his garden and his bees, for which his liking is now near thirty
years old. Two hours, always exactly two hours, of work follow. Then
he goes out again, canoeing, motoring, cycling, or walking. He reads in
the evening and goes to bed in good time.” The work of these two hours
is prepared easily and quietly during the pleasures and other duties of
the day. Madame Maeterlinck compares him taking up his work to a child
leaving its games and going on with them as soon as allowed—an innocent
and ambiguous comparison. She implies that his work is sub-consciously
matured and methodically put on paper, and that his natural tranquillity
and the surroundings and conditions of his life have long been
felicitously combined; and she says it might seem that the mysterious
powers have woven between him and the world a veil which allows him a
clear vision whilst yet himself invisible, as they have favored him by
the gift of a home not less wonderful than the castles he imagined for
Alladine and Selysette and Maleine.
However in a consideration of “The Miracle of St. Anthony,” the life
of the man, his place as a philosopher, and his achievements as a poet
are only indirectly concerned. The little play counts first of all in
its relation to “La Princesse Maleine,” “Les Sept Princesses,” and
especially, “Les Aveugles,” and “L’Intruse.” Perhaps closest to it of
them all is “L’Intruse.” To recall that play. It does not need the Dutch
clock in the corner to fix the scene in the Lowlands. In a dimly lighted
room in an old country house the grandfather, the father, the uncle, the
three daughters are sitting about a table. It has rained the whole week
and the night without is damp and cold. In the next room lies the sick
mother. The father is hopeful, relying on the assurances of the doctors.
But not the grandfather. They are expecting some one. They speak in low
voices, at random. Besides the woman in the other room there is a young
child.
THE UNCLE—The little one would cause me more anxiety than your
wife. It is now several weeks since he was born, and he has
scarcely stirred. He has not cried once all the time! He is
like a wax doll.
THE GRANDFATHER—I think he will be deaf—dumb, too, perhaps—the
usual result of marriages between cousins. (_A reproving
silence._)
THE FATHER—I could almost wish him ill for the suffering he has
caused his mother.
THE UNCLE—Be reasonable. It is not the poor little thing’s
fault. He is quite alone in the room.
More and more is the old man troubled. He complains that he can no longer
hear the nightingales, and that some one must be in the garden. The trees
in the park are trembling as if some one was brushing a way through, the
swans are scared, and the fishes diving in the pond, but the watch-dog
does not bark. Through the glass door, that some mysterious agency has
opened, the cold rushes into the room. The sound of a scythe being
sharpened is heard outside. The child that has before been silent, begins
to cry. There is a knock at the door. The Father partly opens it, and
speaks to the servant, who answers, remaining on the outside.
THE GRANDFATHER—Your sister is at the door?
THE UNCLE—I can see only the servant.
THE FATHER—It was only the servant. (_To the servant_) Who was
that, that came into the house?
A note is struck similar to one used later by Lord Dunsany in “A Night
at an Inn.” Some invisible force is pushing open the door. The servant
protests that it is not she, as she is standing three yards away from the
door. The Grandfather is conscious of a new presence. “And who is that
sitting there?” he asks. “But there is no one there,” he is told. But he
will not believe them, maintaining that in pity they are deceiving him. A
ray of moon-light penetrates, throwing strange gleams. The clock strikes
midnight; at the last stroke there is a sound as of some one rising in
haste. Cries of terror from the child’s room: quick and heavy steps.
Then silence. The door of the sick woman’s room slowly opens, and the
Sister of Mercy appears on the threshold. She bows as she makes the sign
of the Cross.
In “Les Aveugles” Maeterlinck turned from a typically Flemish setting to
a forest on a small island—“a very ancient northern forest, eternal of
aspect, beneath a sky profoundly starred.” Six old blind men are on the
right, and six old blind women on the left. They are from a Home for the
Blind and they are in the charge of a priest—a very old priest, wrapped
in a wide black cloak, and whose eyes, “dumb and fixed, no longer gaze at
the visible side of eternity, and seem bleeding beneath a multitude of
immemorial sorrows and of tears.” Fear is in the hearts of the priest’s
charges. They are startled by the flutter of wings, by the touch of the
falling snow, by the barking of dogs. They understand nothing save the
sound of the sea and they do not know how near that is. In the priest’s
company they have been exploring their island, which has “a mountain that
no one has climbed, valleys with no one to go down to, and caves that
have not been entered to this day.” They know not yet that the priest is
dead, but they are conscious that something has happened to him. They
offer conjectures, they dig into the past, they deplore their state. At
length one of the men is led by a dog to the center, where the body of
the priest is. He touches a face. The others follow and recognise by
feeling the features of their protector. What are they to do? The only
seeing eyes are those of a child at its mother’s breast. The child cries
at a noise, and they think that it must be something and move towards the
sound that has provoked the cry. Their hope is that the men from the
light-house will see them. At last the footsteps stop. “Who are you?”
asks the child’s mother. But only silence. “Have pity on us,” cries the
oldest blind woman.
“It is not necessary to the effectiveness of this piece,” Mr. Thomas
has written, “that we should believe the blind to represent mankind
bewildered after the loss of religion, their old guide. Whether it is
true or not that religion is dead and men blind without it, the thought
is so stale that in its nakedness it could be of no value to any piece
of writing. But the sight of a blind man sitting still or tapping
in the street is always impressive; and to the blind company in the
play are added many elements of mystery and terror which enhance this
impressiveness. They have at the start little more humanity than the
rocks and trees among which they sit, except that they are conscious of
themselves and one another. They are like creatures suddenly made out of
the rocks and trees; and it is easy to picture beings of equal humanity
standing in the depths of a misty wood when rain falls all through the
day at autumn’s end. Or they are like personifications, so that we feel
no curiosity with the name of any but that one who says for Maeterlinck:
We have never seen one another. We ask one another questions,
and we reply; we live together, we are always together, but we
know not what we are.”
It was Maeterlinck’s very first play, “La Princesse Maleine,” that won
for him the dangerous title of “The Belgian Shakespeare.” Now and then
a writer of our own land has done something that has caused limited
or injudicious critics to speak of him as “The American Dickens” or
“The American Thackeray.” As a rule he has paid a sad price for the
unfortunate comparison. No matter how innocent the man himself has been,
the chorus of mocking, unthinking laughter has been inevitable. In the
case of Maeterlinck ridicule was only momentary. The rush of subsequent
achievement was so swift. The world had had hardly time to gasp at Octave
Mirbeau’s “The Belgian Shakespeare” before some one else was referring to
Maeterlinck as “The Belgian Emerson.” But it did not need the acute mind
of a Mirbeau to find the first comparison. That was obvious. How obvious
a few references to “La Princesse Maleine” will show. To Maleine herself
there is a flavor of Ophelia. The castle of Marcellos, her father, king
of a part of Holland, might be the Castle of Elsinore. There, when the
play opens, is being held the banquet to celebrate the betrothal of
Maleine and Prince Hjalmar. The watching guards gossip of the attentions
that the Prince’s father, old Hjalmar, king of another part of Holland,
has been paying to the exiled Queen Ann of Jutland. A quarrel between the
two kings over the table leads to war, and in an attack on the castle
most of the defenders are killed and Maleine disappears. Through a hole
in the wall of the tower in which Maleine and her nurse are shut up for
safety, they see that the whole land has been laid waste by war and fire.
In the course of subsequent adventures Maleine becomes the attendant of
Uglyane, the daughter of the wicked Queen Ann, whom Hjalmar is now to
marry. In that capacity she carries to her mistress a false message
saying that Hjalmar is not going to keep a tryst, and instead goes
herself. Later there is a knocking at a door, and Maleine enters in the
white robes of a bride. Queen Ann tells old Hjalmar that he must choose
between herself and the returned Princess, and plans to make use of a
poison, which the physician determines to make harmless. Then there is
another storm, and Maleine is alone in the night with a large black dog
quivering in a corner of the room. Old Hjalmar and Queen Ann come to
her door, and pretending to do her hair, the Queen twists a rope round
Maleine’s neck and strangles her. The madman, who at Maleine’s previous
appearance, pointing at her, had made the sign of the cross, thrusts his
head in at the window but is hurled back into the moat by the king. The
murderess puts the corpse to bed. In the fifth and last act the same
storm is raging. The castle is struck by lightning and a mass falls into
the moat. Within all are asking for the king and Queen Ann. When they
enter there are bloodstains in the king’s white hair. Maleine’s dead body
is discovered, and the king drags in Ann, proclaiming her guilt and his
own. Hjalmar stabs the murderess and then kills himself.
In “Les Sept Princesses” there is a vast hall of marble with seven white
marble steps covered by seven pale silken cushions on which the seven
princesses are sleeping. The sun is setting, and in its fading light may
be seen a black marshy country and oak and pine forests. Along the canal
between dark willows, a great warship advances. On the terrace the old
king and queen and a messenger watch the approaching vessel. The king’s
vision fails him and it is the queen who describes the full spread of
sail touching the willows, and the oars like a thousand legs. From the
ship, when the anchor drops, the prince descends. He is shown the seven
sleepers, who are not to be awakened, as the doctor has forbidden it.
“How white they are, all seven! Oh, how beautiful they are, all seven!
How pale, how strange they are, all seven! But why are they asleep, all
seven?” says the prince. He indicates his preference for one of the
seven. “That,” says the queen, “is Ursula, who has waited seven years
for her lover.” The others are Genevieve, Helen, Cristabel, Madeleine,
Claire, and Claribella. Why was Marcellus so long in coming? Night and
day they have been watching along the canal. The sailors turn the ship
to a monotonous song with the burden, “We shall return no more, we shall
return no more.” The sisters still sleep. The queen is frightened at the
plight of her granddaughters and sobs against the window, the watchers
seek to enter, but neither door nor window can be opened. The king and
Marcellus make their way in through a subterranean passage. All the
sleepers but Ursula awake. “She is not asleep,” says the queen. “Pour
water on her.... Open the door.... It is too late.... Shut! shut!” All
cry, shaking the door, and knocking at the window: “Open, open!” A black
curtain falls.
“Nobody,” says Mr. Thomas, “who has read ‘Les Aveugles’ and ‘L’Intruse’
could doubt the authorship of ‘Les Sept Princesses.’ Here are the same
agitated, helpless people speaking in abrupt, simple, and oft-repeated
phrases. Here again, something is going on which they do not understand,
and are impotent to arrest or change. But the matter of both earlier
plays was a not improbable incident which was developed, it may be
extravagantly, but in a manner that touched human beings. If ‘Les
Aveugles’ was extraordinary, while ‘L’Intruse’ was not extraordinary
in any way, both were easy to understand. But ‘Les Sept Princesses’ is
a picture drawn for its own sake. It has its logic, but the elements
in it seem chosen, like those of ‘La Princesse Maleine,’ because they
are attractive in themselves—the marble hall and stairs, the terrace,
the dark land of marshes and forests, the canal and the warship, the
seven princesses in white sleeping on the stairs, the swans, the prince
arriving to claim one of them and finding her at last dead, the old king
and queen shut outside the hall and knocking vainly at the windows;
only, these elements are combined without any of the unwieldiness of ‘La
Princesse Maleine,’ without interfering with themselves or with anything
else. It is simply a picture in Maeterlinck’s manner, and this manner has
the effect of creating a feeling of helplessness and smallness in the
presence of fate and the earth.”
It was not until a later period that Maeterlinck came under the influence
of the American Emerson. “A Belgian Emerson,” Mr. James Huneker has said,
“but an Emerson who had in him much of Edgar Allan Poe.” Surely it was
not through Emerson that Maeterlinck found the author of “The Raven.” Nor
is it certain that there was any direct inspiration at all. More likely
it is that the same visions burned early in the brain of the Flemish
mystic that had seethed in the mind of the gifted, erratic American half
a century before. There was no need for him to know “The House of Usher”
of the Poe tale. Was there not a House of Usher perched on every Flemish
hill, at the bottom of every Flemish valley? Was not the man a forerunner
of Maeterlinck who wrote this?
“Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi—in the iron-bound
melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are glorious histories of
the heaven and of the earth, and of the mighty sea—and of the genius that
over-ruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There was much
lore, too, in the sayings that were said by the Sybils, and holy, holy
things were heard of old by the dim leaves which trembled round Dodona,
but as Allah liveth, that fable which the Demon told me as he sat by my
side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all.”
Or this?
“And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror and stand
trembling and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not
the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying
in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears
in the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed
friends.”
The landscape of most of those early Maeterlinck plays is the landscape
of “Ulalume”:
The skies they were ashen and sober,
The leaves they were crisped and sear,
It was night in the lonesome October
In my most immemorial year.
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber
In the misty mid-region of Weir,
It was down by the dark tarn of Auber
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
But it was a more material setting that Maeterlinck gave to “The Miracle
of St. Anthony.” Not the intangible Nowhere or the impalpable At any
Time, but the present day, a commonplace house, and a small provincial
town in the Low Countries. Instead of stately marble pillars, or primeval
forest, or limitless sea, a room with leather-covered benches against
the walls, two wooden stoves and an umbrella stand, on which are hats, a
cape and wraps. Instead of swans and sleeping beauties, the old drudge
Virginie, with her skirts turned up and her legs bare, swabbing the
floor. In the next room is lying the body of the Maiden Lady Hortensia,
who in her lifetime had been exceedingly generous in her donations to
the church, and especially devoted to the memory of the blessed St.
Anthony of Padua. It is the Saint himself, come to restore her to life
as a reward for her piety, who presents himself at the door-sill as
the curtain rises. In appearance he is not as the dead woman might have
expected. Bare-headed and bare-footed, his beard and hair are scrubby
and tangled, and he is clothed in a soiled, sack-like, and much dirtied
cowl. The story of how he was received by the relatives, the doctor, the
parson, and the gathered guests may be read by those who turn to the
following pages. It was first presented to American play-goers by the
Washington Square Players under the direction of Mr. Edward Goodman at
the Bandbox Theatre in New York, the evening of May 7th, 1915. It had
the quality of novelty, for it was one of the least known of all the
plays. There was a story current at the time that it was produced from
the manuscript. What Maeterlinck himself thinks of it, what place in
his mind it has in his whole scheme of literary production, the writer
cannot say. That is a matter as elusive as the man himself is elusive. To
illustrate that elusiveness by a personal reminiscence:
It was six years ago, in the days when the world was happy with the
blessedness of a peace that seemed likely to endure, and when the
occasional cloud on the political horizon was regarded as nothing more
than a mirage, that the writer and a friend—the latter one of the firm
of M. Maeterlinck’s American publishers—made a journey to the south of
France for the purpose of paying their respects to the Belgian mystic in
his Nice home. In London we had been advised by Mr. Alexander Teixeira
de Mattos, whose admirable translations have done so much to make
Maeterlinck’s name a household name to English-speaking readers. “Here is
his latest letter,” said Mr. Teixeira. “It is dated from his villa in
the Quartier des Beaumettes, which is the rising ground at the western
end of the town. You will find him there; that is, if you succeed in
finding him at all. For he is a very difficult man to find. That is one
of his peculiarities.”
It was the night before the departure from Nice. Our time was limited. At
its môle in the swarming harbor of Marseilles, the Sant Anna, which was
to carry us on its roundabout, five thousand mile journey, with New York
as the ultimate destination, was preparing for its leaving of the next
day. We started on the quest. At the hotel they could tell us nothing.
The driver of the fiacre engaged was no better informed. Surprised but
undaunted we were soon winding slowly between high stone walls, up the
beautiful Beaumettes slope. From villa to villa we travelled, to be
met everywhere by puzzled, negative headshakes. “M. Maeterlinck? We do
not know him. We have never heard of him. We do not think that he is of
the Quartier. Perhaps if you enquire at the villa beyond you will learn
something.” For two hours in the darkness sweet scented by the breath
of the semi-tropical plants and flowers, we kept up the search. But it
was in vain. Here indeed was a prophet unknown in his own country. What
was the reason for the mystery? Was there a vast conspiracy of silence
and pretended ignorance on the part of his neighbors? Were solitude and
freedom from interruption so necessary to his being that the great man
had sworn them to secrecy? Or had he draped himself in some mysterious
veil, some figurative coat of invisible green, through which the eyes
of those who dwelt in the Quartier des Beaumettes had never been able
to see? We never found out. There was about the enigma something weird,
something almost uncanny. We had been told to seek him in a mansion by
the sea. We could hear the waves of the Mediterranean beating against the
rocks below. But was it another ocean—an ocean of the Never, Never Land
that had been meant?
It was many and many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden lived, whom you all may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
Is there a real Maeterlinck house? we asked ourselves. Or is his
habitation of such dream stuff as the House of Usher? Is the land of
Maeterlinck a material land, or is it somewhere “hard by the dim lake of
Auber, in the misty mid-region of Weir: down by the dark tarn of Auber,
in the Ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir?”
THE MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY
THE MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY
_The entrance-hall of a large old-fashioned house. Front-door
on the left. At the back, a few steps with on the left a
glass door with lace curtains, leading to the dining-room,
and on the right a fair of folding glass doors, also with
lace curtains, leading to the drawing-room. Against the wall,
a leather-covered bench, one or two wooden stools and an
umbrella-stand with hats and coats on it._
_The curtain rises on VIRGINIE, the old servant. Her skirts are
pinned up, showing her bare legs and sabots; she is surrounded
with brass pails, swabbing-cloths, brooms and scrubbing-brushes
and is busily washing the flagstones composing the floor. She
stops working from time to time, blows her nose noisily and
wipes away a big tear._
_There is a ring at the front-door. VIRGINIE half opens it,
revealing on the threshold a long lean old man, barefoot,
bareheaded, with tangled hair and beard, and clad in a sort of
frieze habit of faded brown, muddy, out of shape and patched._
VIRGINIE
(_Holding the door ajar._) This is the thirty-sixth time that I’ve been
to the door.... Another beggar! Well, what is it?
SAINT ANTHONY
Let me in.
VIRGINIE
No, you’re all over mud. Stay there. What do you want?
SAINT ANTHONY
I want to come in.
VIRGINIE
What for?
SAINT ANTHONY
To bring Mademoiselle Hortense back to life.
VIRGINIE
Bring Mademoiselle Hortense back to life? Get out! Who are you?
SAINT ANTHONY
Saint Anthony.
VIRGINIE
Of Padua?
SAINT ANTHONY
The same. (_His halo lights up and shines._)
VIRGINIE
Lord bless me, it’s true! (_She opens the door wide, falls on her knees
and mutters a prayer, with her hands folded over the handle of her broom,
after which she kisses the hem of the SAINT’S habit and continues, in
a mechanical and bewildered sing-song._) Saint Anthony, pray for us!
Blessed Saint Anthony, look down upon us! Saint Anthony, pray for us!
SAINT ANTHONY
Shut the door.
VIRGINIE
(_Gets up crossly._) Wipe your feet on the mat. (_SAINT ANTHONY wipes
them awkwardly._) No, that won’t do: rub them hard, rub them hard. (_She
closes the front door._)
SAINT ANTHONY
(_Pointing to the folding-doors._) She is laid out in there.
VIRGINIE
(_In an astonished voice of delight._) Yes, but how did you know? It’s
wonderful! She’s there, in the drawing-room.... The poor dear lady! She
was only seventy-seven. That’s no age at all, is it?... She was a very
pious and deserving lady, you know. She suffered a great deal.... And she
was very rich. They say she’s left two million francs. That’s a lot of
money.
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes.
VIRGINIE
It all goes to her two nephews, Monsieur Gustave and Monsieur Achille.
And she’s left legacies to the Rector, to the church, to the beadle, to
the sacristan, to the poor, to the Curate, to fourteen Jesuits and to all
the servants, according to the length of time that they were with her.
I get most. I’ve been in her service for thirty-three years, so I shall
have three thousand three hundred francs. That’s a good sum.
SAINT ANTHONY
It is.
VIRGINIE
She owed me nothing; she always paid me my wages regularly. You can say
what you like, you won’t find many mistresses who would do as much, after
they were dead and gone. She was one of the best of women. And we’re
burying her to-day.... Everybody has sent flowers. You ought to see the
drawing-room. It’s a glorious sight. There are flowers on the bed, on the
table, on the chairs, on the piano. And nothing but white flowers: it’s
perfectly beautiful. We simply don’t know where to put the wreaths. (_A
ring at the door. She opens it and returns with two wreaths._) Here are
two more. (_Examines the wreaths and weighs them in her hands._) Aren’t
these lovely? Just hold them a minute till I finish my work. (_She gives
the wreaths to SAINT ANTHONY, who takes one in each hand obligingly._)
They’re taking her to the cemetery this afternoon. Everything has to be
nice and clean; and I’ve only time to....
SAINT ANTHONY
Take me to the corpse.
VIRGINIE
Take you to the corpse? Now?
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes.
VIRGINIE
No, it can’t be done. You must wait a bit; they are still at lunch.
SAINT ANTHONY
God bids me hurry; there is no time to lose.
VIRGINIE
What do you want with her?
SAINT ANTHONY
I’ve told you: I want to bring her back to life.
VIRGINIE
You want to bring her back to life? Seriously, do you want to raise her
from the dead?
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes.
VIRGINIE
But she’s been dead three days.
SAINT ANTHONY
That’s why I wish to raise her from the dead.
VIRGINIE
For her to live again as before?
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes.
VIRGINIE
But then there won’t be any heirs?
SAINT ANTHONY
Of course not.
VIRGINIE
But what will Monsieur Gustave say?
SAINT ANTHONY
I don’t know.
VIRGINIE
And will she take back the three thousand three hundred francs which she
gave me because she was dead?
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes, of course.
VIRGINIE
That’s a nuisance.
SAINT ANTHONY
Have you no other money, no savings?
VIRGINIE
Not a farthing. I have an invalid sister who takes every penny I earn.
SAINT ANTHONY
Well, if you are afraid of losing your three thousand francs....
VIRGINIE
Three thousand three hundred francs....
SAINT ANTHONY
If you’re afraid of losing the money, then I won’t raise her from the
dead.
VIRGINIE
Couldn’t I keep the money and you bring her back to life just the same?
SAINT ANTHONY
No, you must take it or leave it. I came down in answer to your prayers:
it’s for you to choose.
VIRGINIE
(_After a moment’s reflection._) Well, then, bring her back to life all
the same. (_The SAINT’S halo lights up and shines._) What’s the matter
with you now?
SAINT ANTHONY
You have pleased me.
VIRGINIE
And then does that lantern thing light up?
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes, of itself.
VIRGINIE
That’s funny.... But don’t stand so near the lace curtains, or you’ll set
them on fire.
SAINT ANTHONY
There’s no danger: it’s celestial flame.... Take me to the body.
VIRGINIE
I’ve told you: you must wait. I can’t disturb them now. They’re still at
lunch.
SAINT ANTHONY
Who?
VIRGINIE
Why, my masters, of course! The whole family! First her two nephews,
Monsieur Gustave and Monsieur Achille, with their wives and children,
Monsieur Georges, Monsieur Alberic, Monsieur Alphonse and Monsieur
Désiré.... And cousins, male and female, and the Rector and the Doctor
and I don’t know who besides: friends and relatives from a distance,
whom I’d never seen. They’re very rich people.
SAINT ANTHONY
Really?
VIRGINIE
Did you notice the street?
SAINT ANTHONY
What street?
VIRGINIE
Why, ours, of course! The one in which our house stands.
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes.
VIRGINIE
It’s a handsome street. Well, all the houses on the left-hand side of
the street, except the little one at the end, the baker’s shop, belong
to Mademoiselle Hortense. Those on the right-hand side are Monsieur
Gustave’s. There are twenty houses. That means money.
SAINT ANTHONY
No doubt.
VIRGINIE
(_Pointing to the halo._) Look, your lantern thing is going out.
SAINT ANTHONY
(_Feeling his halo._) Yes, I’m afraid....
VIRGINIE
Doesn’t it keep burning very long?
SAINT ANTHONY
It all depends upon the thoughts that feed it.
VIRGINIE
Yes, they own woods ... and farms ... and houses galore! Monsieur Gustave
has a starch-factory: Gustave’s Starch, you’ve heard of it, I expect! Oh,
they’re an amazingly well-off family. There are four of them who live on
their incomes and do no business at all. That’s splendid, that is!... And
such friends and acquaintances and tenants!... Well, they’ve all come
to the funeral, some of them from ever so far. There’s one, I’m told,
who travelled two days and two nights to get here in time. I’ll show him
to you: he has a lovely beard.... They’re lunching here. They haven’t
finished yet. We can’t disturb them. It’s a great lunch: there are
twenty-four of them sitting down to it. And I’ve seen the bill of fare:
there’s oysters, two soups, three entrées, crayfish in jelly, and trout
_à la Schubert_. Do you know what that is?
SAINT ANTHONY
No.
VIRGINIE
No more do I. They say it’s very good; but it’s not for you and me.
There’s no champagne, because of the mourning; but there’s every other
kind of wine. Mademoiselle Hortense had the best cellar in the town. I’ll
try and get you a good big glass, if they leave any; then you’ll see
the sort of thing.... Wait, I’ll go and look what they’re doing. (_She
goes up the steps, draws back the curtains and peeps through the glass
door on the left._) I think they’re beginning the trout, the trout _à
la Schubert_. Oh, there’s Joseph moving the pine-apple. They’ve a good
two hours before them. You’d better take a seat. (_SAINT ANTHONY goes
to the leather-covered bench and is about to sit down._) No, no, not
there, you’re much too dirty! Sit on the stool. I must get on with my
work. (_SAINT ANTHONY sits down on a stool; VIRGINIE resumes her work and
takes up a pail of water._) Look out! Lift up your feet; I’m going to
splash the water.... No, don’t stay there; you’re in my way; and it’s not
cleaned yet.... Go over there in the corner; push the stool against the
wall. (_SAINT ANTHONY obediently does as she tells him._) There, now you
won’t get your feet wet. Aren’t you hungry?
SAINT ANTHONY
No, thank you, but I’m rather in a hurry; so go and tell your masters.
VIRGINIE
You’re in a hurry? What have you got to do?
SAINT ANTHONY
Two or three miracles.
VIRGINIE
I can’t tell them anything while they’re at lunch. We must wait till
they’ve had their coffee. Monsieur Gustave might be very angry.... I
don’t know what sort of reception he’ll give you; he doesn’t like having
poor people in the house. You don’t look over-prosperous.
SAINT ANTHONY
No, saints are never prosperous.
VIRGINIE
They have money given them, though.
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes, but not everything that’s given to the saints reaches heaven.
VIRGINIE
You don’t mean it? Then do the priests take what we give? I’ve heard it
said; but I wouldn’t believe.... There now, I’ve got no water left!... I
say!
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes?
VIRGINIE
Do you see a brass tap on your right?
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes.
VIRGINIE
There’s an empty pail beside it. Would you mind filling it for me?
SAINT ANTHONY
With pleasure.
VIRGINIE
You see, I’ll never get all this cleaning done if some one doesn’t help
me. And there’s nobody to help me: they’re all losing their heads....
It’s a terrible job, a death in the house! You know that as well as I do.
A good thing it doesn’t happen every day.... Monsieur Gustave will make a
fuss if everything isn’t clean and shining when his guests come through
here.... He’s not easy to please.... And I still have all the brass to
do.... There, turn the tap; that’s right.... Bring me the pail.... Aren’t
your feet cold? Tuck up your gown or it’ll get wet.... Mind the wreaths;
put them on the stool.... That’s right, that’s capital. (_SAINT ANTHONY
brings her the pail_.) Thanks, you’re very kind.... I want one more.
(_A sound of voices and of chairs being pushed back._) Listen! What’s
that? I’ll go and see. (_She goes to the glass door._) Hallo, the master
has got up! What can it be? Have they quarrelled?... No, the others are
eating.... Joseph is filling up the Rector’s glass.... They are finishing
the trout.... The master is coming to the door.... Why, I might speak to
him as he comes out and tell him that you....
SAINT ANTHONY
Yes, do, please; tell him at once.
VIRGINIE
Very well. Put down the pail; I don’t want it. Here, take this broom. Not
like that! You’d better sit down again. (_SAINT ANTHONY obeys and sits
on the two wreaths lying on the stool._) Hi, what are you doing? You’re
sitting on the wreaths!
SAINT ANTHONY
I beg your pardon. I’m a little short-sighted.
VIRGINIE
Clumsy! They’re a pretty sight now! And what Monsieur Gustave will say
when he sees those two wreaths!... Thank goodness, they’re not so bad
after all! We can put them right. Sit down over there; take them on your
knees; and keep quite quiet. (_She goes down on her knees before the
SAINT._) I have a favour to ask you.
SAINT ANTHONY
Speak, don’t be afraid.
VIRGINIE
Give me your blessing, while we are by ourselves. When the company comes
out, I shall be sent away; and I sha’n’t see you any more. Give me your
blessing for myself alone. I am old and need it badly.
SAINT ANTHONY
(_Rises and blesses her. His halo lights up._) I bless you, my daughter,
for you are good, simple of heart and mind, faultless, fearless,
guileless in the presence of the great mysteries and faithful in the
performance of your little duties. Go in peace, my child. Go and tell
your masters....
(_Exit VIRGINIE. SAINT ANTHONY sits down again on the stool.
Presently the glass door opens and GUSTAVE enters, followed by
VIRGINIE._)
GUSTAVE
(_In a harsh and angry voice._) What’s all this? Who are you? What do you
want?
SAINT ANTHONY
(_Rising humbly._) I am Saint Anthony.
GUSTAVE
Are you mad?
SAINT ANTHONY
Of Padua.
GUSTAVE
What sort of joke is this? I am in no mood for laughing. Have you been
drinking? Come, what are you here for? What do you want?...
SAINT ANTHONY
I want to raise your aunt from the dead.
GUSTAVE
What? Raise my aunt from the dead? (_To VIRGINIE._) He’s drunk. Why did
you let him in? (_To SAINT ANTHONY._) Look here, my man, be sensible: we
have no time for jesting. My aunt is to be buried to-day; you can call
again to-morrow. Here. Here’s a trifle for you.
SAINT ANTHONY
(_With gentle persistence._) I must raise her from the dead to-day.
GUSTAVE
All right, presently, after the ceremony! Come, here’s the door.
SAINT ANTHONY
I shall not leave until I have brought her back to life.
GUSTAVE
(_Blazing out._) Look here, I’ve had enough of this! You’re getting
tiresome! My guests are waiting for me. (_He opens the front-door._)
Here’s the door. Look sharp, please!
SAINT ANTHONY
I shall not leave until I have brought her back to life.
GUSTAVE
Oh, won’t you? We’ll see about that. (_Opens the glass door and calls
out._) Joseph!
JOSEPH
(_Appears in the doorway, with a large steaming dish in his hands._) Yes,
sir?
GUSTAVE
(_Glancing at the dish._) What’s that?
JOSEPH
The partridges, sir.
GUSTAVE
Give the dish to Virginie and turn this drunken fellow out of doors. And
be quick about it.
JOSEPH